How to Stop Overthinking and Make Clearer Decisions - The Certainty Trap: Why Overthinking Decisions Keeps You Stuck (and How to Break Free)
Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 206
This one is for people who ask themselves, "How do I stop overthinking decisions?"
The reality is that overthinking is almost never about the decision itself. It's about the fear of making the wrong choice and then being responsible for the consequences.
The thought spiral is your brain trying to think its way into a certainty that doesn't exist.
The truth is, we don't know what the outcomes are gonna be. We never know how all of this stuff's gonna work its way out.
We think we can predict a certain set of results, and we are hoping that we can edge our way towards something that looks like certainty. But we're making all of this stuff up the whole time.
And that's when more information doesn't help. And that is the one thing that your brain quite often wants to go and seek. If I know a lot more details about this, I'll be able to make that clear, certain decision that allows me to know with absolute clarity that this is the right thing to do. But at a certain point, gathering data is just sophisticated avoidance.
The truth is, you probably already know enough to make the decision that you're gonna be making. It's just maybe you might not be ready to be accountable for what you already know.
The reality is that there is no objective right decision to any question out there. There's only the decision that you make, and then what you do with that.
People who seem really decisive aren't better at predicting outcomes. They don't have some magic crystal ball that enables them to know what the future holds. They are better at tolerating uncertainty, and that is a practiced skill that you can learn.
Quite often, the question underneath a lot of decision spirals is, "If this all goes wrong, will I be able to cope?"
Not, "Which option is better?" "If I think I've done the wrong thing, am I gonna be able to handle the way that I speak to myself?" Work on your answer to that question explicitly, and suddenly the decision becomes a lot more clear.
And don't forget to notice what you already know in your body before your brain got involved in anything. This isn't just woo, although, you know, I have my woo moments. It's also psychology. Your nervous system has clocked a whole load of things that you haven't even verbalised yet, especially about which options feel like expansion and which ones feel like dread.
Overthinking is often your head trying to talk you out of things that you already know, and if you don't think that I'm right on this, try just making any old decision. Flip a coin. Say yes or no, and if your whole system goes, "Oh, no, that was the wrong answer because X, Y, and Z," you know that actually you wanted the other choice.
At any juncture, we have a chance to step left or right, right or wrong, fear or love. It's always about how you're gonna speak to yourself in that process, and if you can work out that no matter where you step, no matter what you do, you're gonna speak to yourself with kindness and grace, you get less worried about the decision being wrong because of the way that you're gonna talk to yourself and the feelings that you don't think that you're gonna be able to handle, and more aligned with decisions that are out there available to you and the endless possibilities that you never even thought possible because you've been shutting them down because the emotions that you didn't wanna feel.
Nearly everything that we want in life is the other side of a feeling that we are not willing to experience. Stretching ourselves into being willing to tolerate emotions that feel a little bit uncomfortable, and change always feels uncomfortable, is where we're gonna find the most expansive, exciting adventures that we could ever dream of.
I'm wishing you clear decisions, and remember that we're making this stuff up as we go along. There's no right answers. There's only kindness, compassion, and that has to extend towards yourself.
Wishing you clarity, and I'll speak to you next week.
Comments